T.C. Bridges

The Man from Montevideo

Warsaw 2019

Contents

I. THE ENCOUNTER

II. ONE WEEK'S WORK

III. THE DARKENED FLAT.THE DARKENED FLAT

IV. EIGHT HUNDRED POUNDS IN NOTES

V. NO LIGHT ON THE MYSTERY

VI. THE MAN FROM MONTEVIDEO

VII. BEARDING THE LION

VIII. GLASS HOUSES

IX. AT PISTOL POINT

X. DOWN AND OUT

XI. NO LETTER FROM PETER

XII. SHANGHAIED!

XIII. THE SKIPPER OF THE "EAGLE."

XIV. ASKING FOR TROUBLE

XV. A LONE HAND

XVI. LEFT TO SWIM FOR IT

XVII. JASPER ACTS

XVIII. JETSAM

XIX. THE SUNDAY PAPER

XX. THE LAST OF LIMM

XXI. THE BIG FISH

XXII. BASSETT'S BACKER

XXIII. A DAY'S SHOOTING

XXIV. PETER CONFESSES

XXV. THE FAIRY GOD-MOTHER

XXVI. TWO LETTERS

XXVII. THE QUARREL

XXVIII. IN CUSTODY

XXIX. NO NEWS OF JASPER

XXX. THE DAY GOES ILL

XXXI. THE CLOUD LIFTS

I. THE ENCOUNTER

THE water was perfect, the breeze upstream, Peter Carr was putting his flies across the gently-rippling pools with his usual skill. Yet not a fish would move, not the tiniest rise rewarded his best efforts.

He paused at last and glanced upwards scanning the sky, seeking for some solution of the mystery. Sure enough, up over the craggy summit of Omen Beam a fluff of snow-white mist was rolling like a monstrous ball of cotton-wool.

“Fog!” he muttered ruefully. “Hang the luck! That puts the hat on any chance of a basket to-day. I may just as well give up at once and get back home.”

He reeled up, fastened his tail fly into the lowest ring, and turning, tramped off up the steep hillside.

Before he was half-way to the top the edge of the mist cloud enveloped him, cutting off his view of everything beyond a radius of forty or fifty yards.

A stranger to the moor might well have been nervous, but Peter knew his way, and picked his path among the grey boulders and thick gorse and heather with the light step of the trained athlete.

Thicker and thicker the fog rolled down. The billowing waves at times nearly blinded him, then would lift enough to show his surroundings for a matter of a hundred yards or more. Beads of moisture formed on the rough surface of his thick Donegal tweeds, and dripped from the brim of his cap.

A stone wall loomed through the smother. He climbed it, and much to his delight found himself on the main road.

“Good business!” he remarked cheerfully. “I didn’t waste many steps. And now for home and a hot bath, a change, and a real creamy, jammy tea.”

Peter had tramped a good many miles that day, and the prospect of a quiet evening over a glowing peat fire was distinctly pleasing. But before he had gone another quarter of a mile he was roused from his pleasant reverie by a shrill call for help.

He pulled up short.

The voice was a girl’s voice, but where it came from was somewhat doubtful. Fog plays queer tricks with ears as well as eyes.

“Help! Oh!–will no one come?”

“Keep quiet–curse you!” was the low savage reply, and the girl’s voice was shut off as though a hand had clutched her throat.

This time there was no doubt in Peter’s mind about the direction from which the voices came, and he was off down the road at the top of his speed.

He had not far to go. Barely a hundred yards further on he came upon a tableau which might have been lifted straight out of a picture palace.

On the broad strip of sheep-bitten turf, beside the road, a big, brawny-looking man was holding with both hands a girl who, by the look of her, had already put up a pretty good fight.

The man was dressed in that particularly hideous attire which is worn only by inmates of his Majesty’s convict prisons, and which consists of a red-and-blue slop jacket, a Glengarry cap, and breeches and gaiters of a drab hue plentifully besprinkled with broad arrows. His face, heavy-jawed, strong, and vicious, was not improved by a quarter-inch growth of black stubble.

“Quiet–curse you!” Peter heard him growl again. “Give me what you’ve got, and I’ll let you go. If you don’t, I’ll choke the life out of you.”

Peter had won the welter-weight championship of his university in the previous year, and naturally was trained to keep his temper in emergency. But this was a bit too much, even for a boxer’s sang froid. Every drop of blood in his body boiled, and covering the last few yards in three jumps, he hurled himself upon the convict.

Yet quick as he was, the other was almost equally quick. He dropped the girl, who staggered away against the wall, and spinning round, was in time to face Peter’s onslaught.

Peter, confident in his own powers, went right at the fellow. It gave him a nasty jar when he found that the straight left which he had meant for the convict’s jaw, was deftly turned aside, while he himself had to guard a dangerous right swing.

The man knew more than a bit about boxing, and into the bargain was a good three inches taller than Peter and with a proportionately longer reach, Peter realised with great promptitude that this was not going to be any walk-over, and altered his tactics accordingly.

Instinctively he fell into the crouching attitude of the trained fighter.

The convict left him little time to consider. Realising apparently that his antagonist was a boxer, he came in with a rush, trusting, no doubt, to his height and bulk to knock Peter off his feet.

The weight of his charge and the iron hardness of the man’s body warned Peter that he was up against a very stiff proposition. He gave ground, and as ill-luck would have it, caught his left heel on a loose stone and turned his ankle badly. A sharp twinge of pain darted up his leg, he staggered, and the convict, seizing his chance, swung a weighty punch to his body.

Peter as near as possible went down. If he had, he would certainly never have been given a chance to get up again. But somehow he saved himself, and jumped sideways just in time to elude a tremendous upper cut.

The convict overbalanced, and before he could steady himself Peter got his own back in the shape of a punch on the jaw which staggered his big opponent.

It was a blow that would have put a weaker man out, but the big brute merely grunted, gave back a little, then came on again more viciously than ever.

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